‘PA won’t allow E-1 settlement project to happen’ or the PA will dissolve

 

Saturday Abbas threatened to dissolve the PA if building Israeli homes continues & if the ‘stalemate in the peace process’ persists.

Abbas: Palestinians are “holding contacts on all levels to stop Israeli project that aims to sabotage the peace process.”

By JPOST.COM STAFF

 

The Palestinian Authority will not allow Israeli plans to build in the E1 area of Jerusalem to be realized, PA President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Mahmoud Abbas

Mahmoud Abbas – Photo: Marc Israël Sellem

Abbas said the building plans are “a red line and we will not allow it to happen.”

Speaking at the opening session of the Fatah Advisory Council entitled “statehood and international legitimacy,” the PA president said “we are holding contacts on all levels to stop this Israeli project that aims to sabotage the peace process,” as quoted by Wafa.

Abbas’s comments come a day after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu vowed to ignore the international community’s condemnation of prospective building plans for Jerusalem across the Green Line, in an interview aired in part on Channel 2.

“The entire world oppose settlements and say they are illegal,” Wafa quoted Abbas as saying. “International resolutions say settlements are an obstacle to peace and therefore they should be stopped in total in all the Palestinian territories, particularly in occupied Jerusalem, in order to resume serious and real negotiations on all final status issues to reach a comprehensive and just peace.”

He added that Palestinian leaders were exploring a range of measures to respond to Israeli moves, and called on the international community to press Israel to release tax revenues belonging to the PA.

In reference to the building plans, Netanyahu declared on Friday that “The Western Wall is not occupied territory, and I don’t care what the United Nations says.”

“We are living in the Jewish State,” the prime minister said, and “The capital of the Jewish state, for 3,000 years, has been Jerusalem. I want to say it clearly.”

“On election day, Israeli citizens will send a message,” he continued, “not only domestically but also to the international community.”

“Do you know who will be paying attention to the election results?,” Netanyahu added, “[Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah, [and Hamas chief Khaled] Mashaal, they’ll wait for polls to close and for results to be publicized. And they’ll want to know if the prime minister was strengthened or weakened.”

Netanyahu’s statements came in wake of widespread censure over preliminary plans to construct thousands of new apartment units in the E1 area of Jerusalem located across the Green Line.

 

View original Jerusalem Post publication at: http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=296966